Archive for Volleyball Drills

Synopsis: This pepper variation takes the standard two-player version and introduces playing the ball over the net, putting a real premium on ball control and smart ball-handling.

Age/Skill Level: This is a drill for all levels.

Requirements: 2 players, one ball, a net.

Execution: This variation of 3-person over-the-net pepper begins with one player on each side of the net, one with a ball. The player with the ball (Player A) hits it over to the other player and immediately runs under to the other side. The second player (Player B) passes the ball as normal. Player A sets the ball up to Player B and ducks back under the net. Player B plays the ball to Player A, and ducks under to the other side to set Player A. And so on.

Synopsis: This drill gets a lot of players active on one court working on serving, passing, setting and hitting – and potentially blocking and defense.

Age/Skill Level: This is a drill for intermediate and higher levels.

Requirements: 14+ players, 4 balls, a net.

Execution: Set the players up as shown in the diagram below – two passer/hitters on each side, two servers behind the end lines, and one setter on each half court. The half courts run independently as separate drills. The drill begins with a serve going to the pair of Passer/Hitters with the setter on their side. One of them passes the ball. The setter sets to either P/H. That player than goes to become the server on their side. The setter switches sides and the drill repeats for the other side. The server then goes in to replace the P/H who hit the ball the repetition before.Variations:

If you have sufficient numbers, you can have 4 setters in the drill and not have them flip sides.

If you have extra non-setters you can have the extras in the service area where they can be ready to serve straight away following a miss.

You can let the players to play out a rally rather than just having the attacked ball to be the conclusion of the repetition.

If you don’t want to use fixed setters, you can have the hitter rotate to setter, and the setter rotate to server.

Additional Comments:

You can make this something of a butterfly by having the hitter collect their ball and go to the other side to serve rather than stay on their own side. This may require having more than just 14 players, however, depending on the skill of your players and the size of your gym (ball chase time).

Having the players play out the rally would be more easily done if you have two setters on each half court rather than just one, but it can still be done with one setter quickly ducking under the net each time the ball goes over.

Of course this drill can be done with fewer numbers using a full court. The idea in this case, though, was the show a way to incorporate a large number with as many active players as possible.

A while back I shared something called the Second Chance Game. The basic idea is that a player who makes an error is immediately given an opportunity to correct their mistake. For example, a hitter spikes a ball into the net. The coach immediately makes them hit another ball, and potentially another, and another until they have a good swing. It is worth noting that doing this sort of error correction need not be confined to one certain type of game. It can happen at any time, in any game or drill.

During my time with the professional teams in Germany, I saw many examples of the coaches using this kind of second chance approach. They did it in passing drills. They did it in defense drills. They did it when working on movement. They did it for setting. The point was to not accept the bad repetition – especially if it was driven by poor technique, bad decision-making, etc. – and reinforce the desired execution.

In fact, second chance is often best used in drills because it’s easier to have a do-over in those situations than in game-play. Second chance when having your team play tends to create a continuous play situation. This can be useful at times, but if you’re looking to have something with a more discrete stop-start process (like with rallies begun by a serve), then second chance from an individual player perspective is probably not the best choice. You could, however, do it from a broader team perspective by repeating the play from the start or from some key juncture.

Synopsis: This pepper variation expands on the over-the-net version to allow for more players to be included, potentially allowing for increased complexity.

Age/Skill Level: This is a drill for all levels.

Requirements: 6 players, one ball, a net.

Execution: This extension of 3-person over-the-net pepper begins with 3 players on each side of the net – one off the net one at the net, and the last one off the back line waiting to come in. One side starts the drill by tossing the ball to the player off the net on the other side. The player digs/passes the ball to the player at the net who sets back to them to play the ball over the net on the third contact. The setter rotates out, the digger/hitter moves up to become the new setter, and the off player steps in to become the new digger/hitter. The pattern repeats and play continues for as long as the ball can be kept in play.

Variations:

Depending on the level of your players you can have the 3rd contact ball be a free ball, down ball, tipped, rolled or controlled attacked ball.

You could have the off player doing something while they wait to enter the court – jumps, footwork movement, etc.

If you have the space, you could have 2 players in the off-the-net positions to create a kind of controlled 3’s game. In this case, the digger continues to attack and then swaps places with the setter.

Additional Comments:

While it is possible to add players to this drill, that generally isn’t recommended from the perspective of maximizing player contacts. Better to create additional smaller groups if the space permits.

By having two digger/hitters on rather than one you increase the complexity by forcing seem communication.

Synopsis: This is fairly simple group ball-handling and movement drill (though with room for increased complexity and/or intensity) that could be used as a warn-up.

Age/Skill Level: This is suitable for all levels

Requirements: 5 players, 1 balls, court, 3 cones

Execution: Place two players on one side of the court and three on the other. Behind the two players place one cone each, and place a third cone on the 3-player side in the middle of the court toward the back. What follows is a continuous ball movement exercise where the players on the 2-person side always pass the ball straight ahead over the net while those on the 3-person side always pass the ball diagonally. After one of the 2-person side players passes the ball, they circle around the cone behind them, while on the other side the passer loops behind the cone to switch to the other position.

Variations:

Players can be required to forearm pass or set the ball, or some combination.

The cones can be moved to challenge player movement to a greater or lesser degree.

A second ball can be introduced to increase tempo and focus requirement.

Additional Comments:

If using multiple balls in this drill you’ll probably need to have more than just the 5 players to keep the play flowing.

Synopsis: This team pepper variation is good for working on both defense and controlled attack across the net.

Age/Skill Level: This is suitable for intermediate to advanced players

Requirements: 6+ players, balls, court

Execution: Place a setter on both sides of the net in target, along with players in positions 1 and 5 on both sides. Initiate a ball to one of the back row players to dig/pass to the setter, who then sets either one of the players on their side. That player hits a cross court standing attack (down ball) to the player in their same position (i.e. 1 to 1, 5 to 5). Play continues from there.

Variations:

If you have more than 6 players, the hitter/defenders can rotate by having the player who “attacks” the ball goes to the back of the court on the other side to eventually re-enter the drill there, with someone taking their vacated place.

Instead of hitting cross-court, players can hit line.

With more advanced players you can make it actual attacked balls, front or back row.

An additional defender could be added in 6, especially for less advanced teams to get more digs. If so, you can continue to have the players in 1 and 5 be the attackers, and have the player from 6 rotate in for the player who just hit the ball.

Additional Comments:

In order for this drill to work well, players must be relaxed executing a standing down ball. If they are not, there will be many, many errors.

Synopsis: This is a combination passing and setting drill, which can also incorporate controlled serving, and perhaps even hitting.

Age/Skill Level: This is suitable for all levels

Requirements: 5+ players, 4 balls, court, 2 cones

Execution: Place one player in each half of the back row, a setter near the net in the passing target zone, and one player each near the antennae as setting targets, with a coach on the other side of the net opposite the passers. The coaches alternate sending free balls to their passer. After a player passes the ball, they move to a cone set somewhere on the perimeter of the court and then back into position. The setter alternates setting forward and back. After 10 balls to each passer, they switch with one of the targets.

Variations:

Players can be used in place of the coaches to initiate balls to the passers.

Serves (from in the court or full) can be used in place of free balls.

Setter can either set the balls passed from position 5 to the target in 4, and the ones from zone 1 to the target in 2, or vice versa.

Synopsis: This is a straight-forward small-group ball-handling drill, but with an added dimension which forces players to have teammate awareness and focus on their next duty.

Age/Skill Level: This is suitable for all levels

Requirements: 5+ players, 1 ball per each player but one (so 4 balls for 5 players)

Execution: Begin with two short lines of players with balls on either side of the net, and one player without a ball near the net on one side. The first player in line on the side without the player at the net (P1) tosses the ball over the net to the player first in line on the other side (P2) then moves to the net on their own side. As the ball is crossing the net P2 tosses the ball they are holding to the player at the net (P3), then plays the incoming ball back over the net to the next person in line (P4). P3 catches the ball tossed to them by P2, and moves to the end of the line on their side of the net. After passing the ball to P4, P2 moves to the net. As the ball crossed back over the net toward them, P4 tosses their ball to P2 and the cycle repeats.

Variations:

You can specify how players play the ball over the net – forearm pass, overhead passe, pass to set and tip, etc.

The player at the net can be required to execute some skill with the incoming back (e.g. set to self) before going to the back of the line.

You can run the drill for some number of balls over the net or time without a ball hitting the floor (including the tossed ones).

Additional Comments:

You will observe two primary causes of balls hitting the floor beyond simple errors in balls played over the net. One is bad tosses to the target player near the net because the ball just gets thrown in a panicky fashion. The other is balls not caught by the target player because they were too busy ball-watching. The primary motivation of this drill is on those two points of contact.

Summer is, of course, prime season for volleyball camps. As anyone who has ever run one knows, camps present their own set of challenges for drill and game selection. When you’re designing a plan for a practice session you at least know the level of the players, the distribution of players in the various positions, and things like that. Camps are more akin to try-outs. You’re trying to employ activities which can accommodate for a number of variables.

Actually, in many camps there is a sort of try-out process at the beginning. That’s to assign players to courts or teams for the remainder of camp based on position, skill level, etc. It requires drills which can be used to handle large numbers of players efficiently. If you’re in a position like this, have a look at the Volleyball Try-Out Drill Ideas post.

Warm-ups

It is very easy in a camp situation where you’re dealing with potentially a lot of players to get lazy and do something like jog & stretch. Please don’t do that! You can see my thoughts on warm-ups in general in the post Are your warm-ups wasting valuable time? Suffice it to say, I think you can do better, even if it’s just adopting some kind of dynamic warm-up. Depending on the age and skill level of the group, consider a ball-handling and/or footwork oriented warm-up.

Lots and lots of touches!

Part of running a camp is making sure the campers are happy and feel they got something out of it. Standing around for long periods doing nothing doesn’t help with that. You want to keep them active as much as possible. The more ball contacts you can get them the better. The best way to do this is to put them in small groups. That allows you to run ball-handing shuttles (like 21) and/or pepper variations such as 3/4-person in-line or over-the-net. You can also play small-sided games. Maybe do it in a tournament format to add a competitive element.

Inclusive rather than exclusive

Be careful about drills or games where players who make a mistake are bumped out for long periods of time. An example of this is the common serving drill where you have players on both sides serving back and forth and missed serves cause players to have to go sit on the other side until a teammate hits them with a serve. That sort tends to see the weaker players spend the most time sitting on the floor. A better option would be the Amoeba Drill, which flips that around (always a popular one, by the way).

Emphasize connecting with new people

Unless you’re running a team camp, you’re going to have a bunch of players who don’t know each other. That means as you design activities for the campers you need to incorporate a “getting to know your fellow campers” element. There are loads of different icebreaker exercises out there that can help. Many can be incorporated into volleyball work.

Talk as little as possible

The campers are there to work on their skills and play games – and be social. They are not there to attend a series of lectures. Spend as little time as you can get away with having them listen to coaches talk and as much time as possible on the court.

Be creative and make it fun!

Creativity can go a long way toward making for a positive camper experience. As much as we coaches might want to spend loads of time on fundamentals, the kids can only tolerate a limited amount of ball-handling work before they start to lose focus. By all means, do lots of fundamental work in your camp, but think about ways you can do it without the kids realizing you’re doing so. Using different types of games can help that, especially since the kids will be eager to play anyway.

Whether you are running a camp or just part of the coaching staff, keep in mind that as much as we might like it to be otherwise, camps are at least as much about entertainment as making players better. If you want players to come back again and/or tell their friends about it, they have to have a positive experience. This is something different than coaching a team or a training session where the focus tends to be more on challenging the players. Keep the fun element in mind and you’ll tend to end up with more satisfied campers.

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